Software Development Website Designing

Working on the server side does not necessarily imply that all the required information needs to be present on the database of the site on which we are working. As a matter of fact, growing parts of the information that is used on the server-side come from external sources, often via an API that allows some kind of service to provide information to the website without having access to the database on the remote site. To utilize this information, we can use the cURL built-in PHP extension.

Software Development Website Designing

cURL is a PHP extension, that allows us to receive and send information via the URL syntax. By doing so, cURL makes it easy to communicate between different websites and domains.This tutorial includes 5 common cases for the use of cURL, and they include

• download the contents of a website
• download a file from a website
• Auto Form Submission
• Authentication
• Use Of Cookie

# How does the cURL extension work?

Software Development Website Designing

cURL works by sending a request to a web site, and this process includes the following four parts:

1. Initialization.

–$handle = curl_init();

2. Setting the options. There are many options, for example, an option that defines the URL.

– curl_setopt($handle, CURLOPT_URL, $url);

3. Execution with curl_exec().

-$data = curl_exec($handle);

4. Releasing the cURL handle.

-curl_close($handle);

The second part is the most interesting because it allows us to define how cURL works in a highly accurate manner, by using the many options it has to offer.

# 1. How to download the contents of a remote website to a local file?

In order to download the contents of a remote web site, we need to define the following options:

CURLOPT_URL- Defines the remote URL

CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER- Enables the assignment of the data that we download from the remote site to a variable. In this example, we assign the data into the variable $output.

<?php

$handle = curl_init();

$url = “https://xpertlab.com/”;

// Set the url

curl_setopt($handle, CURLOPT_URL, $url);

// Set the result output to be a string.

curl_setopt($handle, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);

$output = curl_exec($handle);

curl_close($handle);

echo $output;

When we print the value of the variable $output to the screen, we will see the xpertlab website

The options can be written more compactly using curl_setopt_array(), which is a cURL function that convenes the options into an array.

curl_setopt_array($handle,   array(      CURLOPT_URL => $url,      CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true   ) );

# 2. How to download a file from a remote site using cURL?

A remote file can be downloaded to our server if the option CURLOPT_ FILE is set. For example, the following code downloads the book “The Divine Comedy” from Project Gutenberg into a the_divine_comedy.html file on our server:

<?php

// The distant site url.

$url = “https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46852/46852-h/46852-h.htm“;

// The file on our server.

$file = __DIR__ . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . “

the_divine_comedy.html”; $handle = curl_init();

// Open the file on our server for writing.

$fileHandle = fopen($file, “w”);

curl_setopt_array($handle,  

 array(     

CURLOPT_URL => $url,     

CURLOPT_FILE => $fileHandle,

  ) );

$data = curl_exec($handle);

  curl_close($handle);

  fclose($fileHandle);

# Handling the returned response

In order to get the parameters of the response for it to be monitored and debugged, we need to set the option CURLOPT_HEADER. For example:

<?php

$url = “”https://www.gutenberg.org/files/41537/41537-h/41537-h.htm”;

$file = __DIR__ . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . “the_divine_comedy.html”;

$handle = curl_init();

$fileHandle = fopen($file, “w”);

curl_setopt_array($handle,

array(

 CURLOPT_URL => $url,

CURLOPT_FILE => $fileHandle,

CURLOPT_HEADER => true

 )
);

$data = curl_exec($handle);

To get additional information about the request, we use the curl_getinfo command that enables us to receive important technical information about the response, including the status code (200 for success) and the size of the downloaded file.

$responseCode   = 
    curl_getinfo($handle, 
        CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE
);
 
$downloadLength = 
    curl_getinfo($handle, 
         CURLINFO_CONTENT_LENGTH_DOWNLOAD
);

In addition, we can also use the commands: curl_error and curl_errno to debug the response and receive informative error messages.

if(curl_errno($handle)) {  print curl_error($handle); }

Let’s see the full code:

<?php

$url = “https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46852/46852-h/46852-h.htm”;

$file = __DIR__ . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . “the_divine_comedy.html”;

$handle = curl_init();

$fileHandle = fopen($file, “w”);

curl_setopt_array($handle,

array(

CURLOPT_URL => $url,

CURLOPT_FILE => $fileHandle,

leHandle,

 )
);

$data = curl_exec($handle);

$responseCode = curl_getinfo($handle, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);

$downloadLength = curl_getinfo($handle, CURLINFO_CONTENT_LENGTH_DOWNLOAD);

if(curl_errno($handle))

{   

print curl_error($handle);

}

else {

if($responseCode == “200”) echo “successful request”;

echo ” # download length : ” . $downloadLength;

curl_close($handle);

 fclose($fileHandle);

}

# 3. How to submit forms with cURL?

Until this moment, we have demonstrated the use of the GET method of HTTP (which is generally used to watch and download content). cURL can also make use of the POST method of HTTP in order to submit forms

Software Development Website Designing

In order to demonstrate form submission with cURL, we need to create the following two files:

1. index.php in which we put the cURL script.
2. form.php in which we put the form to be submitted.

The form.php will be in reality, found on a remote server (although, for the sake of the example, both files may be placed on the same server). Also, for the example, we will use a form with 3 fields: firstName, lastName and submit.

<?php

if(isset($_POST[“submit”]))
{

echo “Full name is ” . $_POST[“firstName”] .
     ” ” . $_POST[“lastName”];

exit;
}
?>

<html>
<body>

<form method = “POST” action = “” >
  <input name=”firstName” type=”text”>
  <input name=”lastName” type=”text”>
  <input type=”submit” name=”submit” value=”שלח” >
</form>
</body>
</html>

To submit the form, the following options need to be set:

1. CURLOPT_POST– Sets the request to be in a post mode.
2. CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS- Receives the associative array of the fields that we want to post. The array keys are named after the name of the form fields.

<?php

$handle = curl_init();

$url = “https://localhost/curl/theForm.php”;

// Array with the fields names and values.
// The field names should match the field names in the form.

$postData = array(
  ‘firstName’ => ‘Lady’,
  ‘lastName’ => ‘Gaga’,
  ‘submit’ => ‘ok’
);

curl_setopt_array($handle,
  array(
     CURLOPT_URL => $url,
     // Enable the post response.
    CURLOPT_POST => true,
    // The data to transfer with the response.
    CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => $postData,
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
  )
);
 
$data = curl_exec($handle);
 
curl_close($handle);
 
echo $data;

# 4. How to perform basic HTTP authentication with cURL?

In order to authenticate with cURL, the following 3 options need to be set:

1. CURLOPT_HTTPAUTH
2. CURLOPT_USERPWD– Through which we define the username and password.
3. CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER

Let’s see the code:

curl_setopt_array($handle,
  array(
    CURLOPT_URL => $url,
   CURLOPT_HTTPAUTH => CURLAUTH_ANY,
   CURLOPT_USERPWD => “$username:$password”,
   CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
  )
);

# 5. How to handle cookies with cURL?

The use of cookies allows a website to identify returning visitors and authenticated users. To this end, cURL provides us with a mechanism through which we can save cookies.

The two main options that allow us to handle cookies are:

1. CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR– Defines the file required to write the cookies.
2. CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE– Defines the file from which the cookies are to be read.

The following code example writes the cookies into a cookie.txt file on the first visit, and then reads the data in later visits.

<?php
 
$handle = curl_init();
 
$url = “https://www.ladygaga.com/artrave-the-artpop-ball”;
 
$file = __DIR__ . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . “cookie.txt”;
 
curl_setopt_array($handle,
  array(
    CURLOPT_URL => $url,
     // The file to which the cookies need to be written.
    CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE => $file,
    // The file freom which the cookies need to be read.
    CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR => $file,
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
  )
);
 
$data = curl_exec($handle);
 
curl_close($handle);

ConclusionSoftware Development Website Designing

Using PHP’s cURL extension provides us with a convenient way to communicate with other web sites, particularly with APIs that are provided by a third party. In the next tutorial, we will learn how to request for private details in the name of users that sign in to our website with their GitHub account. It will be done by using Github’s API, and with the help of cURL. The tutorial will be a good starting point for learning how to make a social login with any social network.